While I am a newbie to the Trainz community. I am not a newbie to train sims as I have been part of the MSTS community for 4 + years. I can say that a couple people have been very helpful to me in the Trainz community. I wont mention their names as they know who they are. Ive also had a couple people get pissed at me for asking them politely about asking "What route is it" via PM messages as I was interested in getting the name of the route and trying it out. Ive even had a couple people claim that I was a "Gimmie pig", But I am far from being one of those type of people. Do I hope to create a route for Trainz at some point like I did with MSTS? I hope so at some point, But right now I just cant be certain. I know two things for certain is that the route would be a fantasy route like the Rattlesnake Desert route was for MSTS and I wont be starting a route until I get Trainz 12 which will be late this year.
I've never seen you as a gimme pig, but one who has asked some great questions. Like how do you go about building a route! That was one of the biggest questions that people ask all the time, but you got the creative juices going and suggestions from lots of "old timers" here.
Also remember the old saying. The only question that is a dumb question is on that's not asked. Many times, there are several people wanting the answer to the same question, and if you ask, then everyone benefits.
Now there is no need to not start working on a route TS2010 while holding out for TS12. Your route will import fine. I was able to bring my very old route, dating back to 2004 into TS12. It was started in early 2004 with TRS2004 before the first SP came out. It has gone through a few variations, but there are still original sections in there even in the latest version.
Anyway, my few pennies in here. The forums have changed since the early days. Perhaps it's because we no longer have people like John Banks, Greg, and Lance poking their noses in like in the early days. Yes, we know they've headed on to bigger projects at other companies, and Auran/N3V has matured. These guys would poke in and add to the frey, and help us out too when we'd go off track and start waffling. Other times too they would waffle along with us, and give us some input on the direction of the company. When companies go beyond this development stage however, this is when they change, and sadly so did Auran. This big change happened just about the time of the Fury failure that nearly cost us the company. During these times a lot of people left, were laid off, or were let go due to the financial changes that took place. The other big change in the forum feelngs happened in 2006 with the big forum crash. After that, nothing was quite the same. It was like someone had taken the steam out of the community.
The other thing too is there is a new group of noobs. These people, fall into two categories. Those that are the gimme-pigs and instant gratification seekers. This is a new generation of kids that feel that they can get everything for free off the net, and everything has to work right off. Unfortunately for them, Trainz is not like that. For others, such as myself, this is like a giant model railroad, as someone else here said. There's that level of creativity, and tinkering, creative thinking, and planning that goes into making things happen.
And then there are those that come here to whine and stirr up the works. Many of these noobs are young, and I've seen the same crowd in other forums as well. These guys have no real point of being there, other than acting like idiots, and getting everyone's knicker in a knot. They feel that they can hide behind the IP address with an anonymous name, and not be called on the carpet. To them being banned from a forum is an honor, and not a mark of shame.
The thing is, the core group, which I hopefully will stay here for some time, can absorb those that want to learn and ask all the questions they want, and kick the others out for being rude. By welcoming in those that show the initiative to move on and mature, this new generation can help keep the community growing and moving forward.
John
I thought about the "ignore" list, but people find their place & if they act right I'll pay attention.